


I'll Surely Burn Myself to Death

by lurrel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: BDSM, Belting, Cunnilingus, F/M, Face Slapping, Poe Dameron Hurts So Prettily, Power Dynamics, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 13:31:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14521632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurrel/pseuds/lurrel
Summary: The first time Poe Dameron gets slapped on the bridge is surprise -- the second time isn't.





	I'll Surely Burn Myself to Death

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after Leia's out of commission but before anything else happens. Just pretend like they had a couple more spare hours. Thanks to Krytella and a peacock for beta-ing.

The first time Poe Dameron gets slapped on the bridge is a surprise -- he knows he disobeyed a direct command, but the very existence of the dreadnaught had meant they’d been less like sitting pelikkis and more like already cooked ones, trussed and set on a platter waiting to be gunned down.

He takes it because he knows he was wrong, even if they're only still alive because of the sacrifices of his pilots, taking out the First Order’s gun ship. Leia would come around to his point, and he’d apologize for turning off his comms. Everything would balance out in the end.

-

The second time it’s not a surprise.

-

“I think you have a serious problem with authority, Captain,” Vice-Admiral Holdo says, clicking her tongue on his rank, and that hot feeling of being ignored starts under his skin. “And I think know what caused it. “

Poe clenches his jaw to keep it in -- he wants to argue, to let her know Leia didn't really mean it, but he tries to swallow it down. Holdo smirks.

“And what is that, Vice Admiral?”

“The General coddled you,” she says and it’s like a second hit, hot shame flooding his face. “She let you get away with too much.”

He opens his mouth but she continues. “And she knew it -- she trusted you, and that’s the only reason I haven’t thrown you into the brig yet. But she busted you down to captain and now you need to start acting like you know your place in this Resistance.”

Poe is seething, but he doesn’t know what to say. Blind loyalty would have left him on Hosnia, nothing but Republic space dust. He’s not in the Resistance for this, to get shoved back into the military hierarchy that killed Muran, to keep quiet.

He does though, and there’s a pause before she speaks.

“Is that clear, Captain?” she asks and he manages to say, “Yes, sir,” because everyone is staring, again, and he doesn’t need this bullshit anyway.

The tension breaks, and she nods, a dismissal if he’s ever seen one, so he goes. Maybe he can get Finn to sit and talk for more than five minutes, maybe even about something other than Rey, the Resistance’s newest Jedi. Maybe he’ll just go take a stress nap.

Instead, Holdo catches him in a corridor as he decides whether he wants to go back to the barracks, or the mess, grabbing his shoulder firmly enough that he startles.

He spins around, wide eyed, and looks up at her. He’d normally make a joke here but he’s still sick to his stomach, like when he fucked up at the Academy and got dressed down for “showboating.” Like every time he got told that the First Order weren’t a real threat and certainly weren’t worth pursuing.

“Vice-Admiral?” he manages.

She smiles, looking down at him like a benevolent anointed figure and says, “Look, I think we can work this out more amicably.”

There’s a buzz in her voice he’s not expecting. The look she sends him turns to heat -- not the kind roiling in his gut, but something darker. He’s seen that look before, of course, but never from a superior, not like this. He’s prey here, she’s inviting him to get hunted with the tilt of her mouth and how close she’s standing, full of promises. His gaze slides down to the elegant length of her neck, the hint of her collarbones thru her dress.

He swallows. “I don’t know, I kind of think the opportunity to kiss and make up flew past us when you smacked me in the face.” It doesn’t come out quite as glibly as he meant it to.

Holdo reaches out and gently cradles his cheek, the one that she hit, still smiling.

Poe shivers. Holdo’s hands are cool and soft, just as well kept as the rest of her. He imagines her fingernails digging into his jaw - it's easier than he expected.

“Oh, you’re going to give up that easily?” she asks, a wicked curl in her mouth and a sharp cock of a pink eyebrow, and boy, if she's trying to teach him to fight his instincts it isn't working. “Plus, my way is less of a waste of our time.”

“I thought we resolved that last one pretty quickly,” he says, and her thumb brushes under his eye. “Sir.”

She ignores him, cooing softly, “I know it’s tough to let your guard down. Even more of a problem once you get promoted, huh?”

She lets go. He bites his lip, still staring up at her, her long neck, her clear eyes.

“I try not to let the title go to my head,” he says finally, eyes narrowing.

She keeps smiling, infuriating. “But it's harder to blow off steam when your squad is mostly subordinates, isn’t it?”

“I’m technically your subordinate right now, Vice-Admiral,” Poe says. His throat feels dry and he knows where this is going and he’s not sure it’s a great idea, might actually be a worse idea than the one that got him demoted.

“Mmm,” she says, and slides a hand into his hair. It's better than he expected, her hand small but confident, long painted nails whispering against his scalp. That hot anger shifts, he wants to bare his throat. She's not wrong that it's been ages since he’s been able to do anything remotely like blow off steam -- even when the troops manage to rally a party together all he can do is make an appearance and then disappear back into requisitions, or ops, standing with the General and strategizing.

“I don’t think you have a lot of trouble saying no to me.”

Poe licks his lips and wishes he was better than this. At least his last mistake blew up a Dreadnaught class cruiser -- at least it got results. This one’s gonna be worse -- it’s less deadly but it’s still a collision course.

“You think I need to get taken down a peg.” Poe’s already leaning into her hand, thinking about what that could be like.

“I think you’d like it. I think you might want it.” She tugs lightly on his hair, then, a cheap trick that makes him want to drop to his knees. He lets his eyes flutter shut, for a moment, and when he looks at her again she’s intent. She’s hooked here; maybe it's been a while for her too.

The whole proposition is stupid. It’s selfish, even, to take her up on this, to get out of his own head, his own grief, his own problems for however long it’ll take her to twist him up. He doesn’t deserve the distraction. But he doesn’t want to be responsible for his own penance, not for this one. He talked to Rose Tico, he’s talked to all of them, the crew, the pilots, he’s talked out.

“You need to let go of some of that guilt,” she says, quiet, dangerous. She doesn’t say “all,” and he thinks she might know what he needs after all.

If he’s gonna be scraped raw at least he could let an expert do it. He might want this.

“Okay,” he says, keeping his breathing even. “Lead the way.”

-

Her quarters are much nicer than his, which is not a surprise. Now that they’re crammed into the _Raddus_ , Poe is relegated to the barracks. Normally, the further away Black One is, the worse he sleeps, which is going to be a real problem soon. Even when they had a base his quarters ended up being a shackup spot for pilots who needed some private time, or a place for Finn to sleep when he wanted to be alone, but they were rarely housing Poe Dameron.

Holdo, though, she’s got things, even if they’re hastily unpacked. There are personal effects around, ones she must have hauled around from base to freighter and back. Poe’s hand goes to his necklace, letting the metal ring there dig into his palm. She has objects here, things that remind her of home, maybe. Things that she might cherish, in space.

He feels uneasy. It doesn’t smell like stale ship air here, or oil and ozone. It’s a light perfume, flowers, the beginning of spring on Yavin IV before the rainy season starts. He's used to ships, the sterile aroma of life-support recycling, not this. There’s a desk and a bed that looks soft, a few chairs and stools. Some kind of flower, improbably alive, on that desk, that she carefully puts up on the one shelf on the wall. Then she turns.

“Well,” Holdo says. She’s leaning against the desk, still stately and poised even with a hungry glint in her eyes. “Any requests before we get started?”

That unease returns, but Poe just shrugs. “I thought the point of this was to have you call the shots.” He doesn’t trust her enough to ask for anything.

“I’m trying to be accommodating,” she says, a little annoyed, a sharp little grin on her face.

“Are you?” he asks, ducking his head and looking up at her through batting lashes. Poe’s not an idiot and he thinks he already knows what she wants.

Her gaze goes a little sharper. “Maybe you don’t want to be accomodating.”

“Maybe,” he says, and he shrugs off his jacket, “but you don’t want me to be. Where’s the fun in me breaking early?”

Holdo tilts her head and gives a little shrug -- and even that looks regal, imperious even. “Maybe we do see eye-to-eye after all, Dameron.”

“How’re we doing this?” he asks, draping the jacket on a chair.

“Limits?” she asks. He bites down the urge to say, I can take anything you can dish out.

“Unless you play extremely hard, I don’t think we’ll get to ‘em,” he says instead, “but if I need to tap out I’ll say X-Wing.”

He gets a little eyeroll, but whatever. They barely have time for something simple and she wants to talk about limits?

“And you?”

That head tilt again. Holdo is reading him, might even be reading him right. “Hmm?”

“What’re your limits?”

She laughs and he can see how she and Leia worked together in the war, how they would fit together. It's not fearlessness but it is something brash they both share. The ability to walk into a room and belong there commanding it.

“I’ll be fine,” she says like she’s restraining herself from saying ‘kiddo’ and he isn’t sure he likes that -- he wants to step into the ring as equals, _allowing_ himself to be taken down, piece by piece. He can’t expect that here, he needs to remember that.

“If you say so,” he says, giving a half shrug.

She hmms to herself. “Take your shirt off,” she says, tone clipped, and Poe feels a rush of something when he does. He drops it on his jacket, stands at parade rest because it’s easier sometimes to let muscle memory take over.

Holdo doesn’t really react, which is different. She’s not here for his body -- or at least it’s not the only reason she’s here. (He’s not sure Nien Nunb would be getting the same attention for insubordination.)

“Belt,” she says, and he gets that off as well. She holds out a hand and he gives it to her, licking his lips and catching himself doing it. It’s well-worn leather, the one he keeps in his go-bag. His good one is currently holding up Finn’s pants, and great, now he’s gonna think about this the next time they see each other.

“What am I going to do with you,” she asks, mostly to herself, and she straightens up. She’s tall enough that he’d have to get on his toes to kiss her, though he doesn’t think that’ll happen. It’s a shame too, because she’s probably very good at it. Holdo seems like someone who appreciates the more sensual aspects of life, after all.

Holdo circles him in what little space is left in the room and he tries to stay relaxed and steady. He’s not a cadet fresh from training -- his muscle is less sculpted from the gym and more sticking around out of necessity, and his stomach is soft. But his waist is still relatively trim, and his shoulders are broad, and he knows what she’s looking at when she pauses behind him. Maybe she’s just sizing up his ass as a target for that belt. Maybe that’s what gets her off and he’s just an incidental body for it.

Poe can’t tell if that would be better, or if he even wants her to really hurt him yet. He’s going to get hurt, though, that much is clear, and he certainly wants _something_ or he wouldn’t be here at all.

“So why are you here?” she asks, and he’s not sure what she wants to hear. He doesn’t know shit, standing there half naked in front of his commanding, his _most_ commanding, officer, and his mouth feels dry.

“You asked me to come,” he says, and he sucks on his lower lip. “Wait, what do you want me to call you?” Poe doesn’t really want to be yelling ‘Vice-Admiral’ at any point in the evening. He shifts his weight and rolls his shoulders, settling.

Holdo huffs behind him. “Just call me sir.” He can hear her exasperation -- maybe he should take this more seriously, but maybe he’s really there to push buttons.

“Alright, sir,” he says, wonders what she’s decided to call him.

“Why are you here, _Captain_ ,” she asks again, voice tauter, stiffer, and he really didn’t want his rank here either but he isn’t surprised. He doesn’t question it.

“I fucked up,” he says, slowly. “I disobeyed a direct command from the General.”

“Good start,” she says, sharp. “But how do you feel about it?”

Poe clenches his fists -- this is asinine. If she wants to push him around to make herself feel like they’ve worked things out, he’s not opposed, but he’s not here for therapy.

“Guilty? Like you need to be punished?” She snaps the belt behind him but he doesn’t startle. “Like you need to atone?”

Of course he feels guilty, feels that guilt press in his chest every night if he sleeps, has been feeling it since Muran, since L’ulo, since his parents came home from an unfinished war, feels it when he sits next to someone at the mess whose sister he sent to die. That’s -- she can’t fix that, this won’t fix that.

“Look, sir, I don’t --” Poe stops and shuts his eyes for a second, takes a breath. “I shouldn’t have cut comms but I’ve already _been_ punished for that, as you keep so kindly reminding me.”

She steps back into his field of vision and studies him again, looking right into his eyes.

“So you don’t feel guilty.” She looks unimpressed, the press of her lips annoyed.

“That’s not what I said,” Poe says, staring up and right back. It’s insolent, he knows, the tilt of his jaw, but he’s mad now, the muscles in his legs flexing with the effort to stay rooted where they are.

“Captain, you didn’t come here for nothing.”

“Well why are _you_ here, sir?” he asks, frustrated.

“I’m here,” she says, cupping his jaw in her hand, “to see if you can learn to take orders.”

She runs her thumb over his bottom lip and his eyes flutter shut for a second

“I’m not apologizing for my actions again,” he says.

“But you do know you deserve to be punished,” she says, voice low and soft and she tightens her grip on his jaw until he opens his eyes. She’s looking at him, hungry, and he doesn’t want to play this game now, he just wants her to --

Holdo slaps him. It stings but it’s more of a shock than anything else.

He wants it to hurt more.

“Your real problem,” she says, “is that Leia’s been coddling you.”

His mouth drops open and he wants to push back but what would he say? ‘That's insubordination?’

“I don’t want to hear you speak,” she says, mouth suddenly twisted hard.

“You might be disappointed by how the rest of this goes,” Poe says, he can’t help himself, and of course she slaps him again, the other cheek this time.

Holdo then touches his cheek again, slides her hand into his hair -- a repeat of their previous meeting. She yanks it back, forcing his face up, neck arched.

Poe had some hazy imaginings about his next time having sex, mostly sweet fantasies of Finn realizing who’d watched over him while he healed. Gentle and soft. This is sharp and mean and finally a spark of want overcomes the unease in his belly.

“You think you’re doing us a favor with your insubordination, looking out for us -- making the hard call?

“You’re not. You’re there to take orders, and that’s what you’ll do here too. You think you're as loyal as a pet jax? Well, prove it to me here.”

And that’s not _fair_. He snorts, twitching a little in her grip. Poe’s loyal -- has been loyal -- to Leia his whole damn life. Before he ever flew in a navy, before he was ever a cadet. He only -- he knew she’d see it his way, and if he’d never --

“Stop thinking,” Holdo snaps, and she twists one of his nipples with her other hand. The whole thing is jarring, he wants to say something.

“I just --”

“I thought I said I don’t want to hear you talking, either,” she says, pulling on the other nipple. He gasps; the painted nails are sharp and mean.

“Now, Captain,” she says, she sneers, and his heart thumps. “I think you want to be _good_ more than you want to be stubborn.”

Poe isn’t sure what to say to that, because she’s right. It galls him, and he feels like transparisteel. Predictable -- how many cocky pilots has she had like this?

She twists at his nipple, yanking.

He hisses, a little gust of air through his teeth, and tries not to arch his back into it. She reads him anyway, digging her nails in harder. This, this is the kind of buzzing his nerves have missed.

“Do you know why you’re here, Captain?”

Poe doesn’t say, because you want to fuck me until I won’t mouth off, doesn’t say stop asking me that fucking question, just shakes his head as much as he can. His scalp tingles.

“Because it’s about time someone taught you some humility.” She pauses. “And I think you want to impress me.” She lets go, and his nipple stings with the returning rush of blood. He gasps, and she lets his hair go too.

“Finish stripping and bend over the bed,” she says, and disappears into the fresher, her _private_ fresher.

He’s left standing in the room alone, and after a moment he shucks his pants and folds them with his shirt on a chair, jacket over the top. His boots, socks, boxer-briefs -- everything comes off. He tucks his necklace into a hidden jacket pocket; he doesn’t want to answer questions about it, about his parents, about anything.

Poe’s never said no to a challenge but he feels unmoored -- Leia’s not gone but what is he now? Holdo’s persuasive -- he wants to let his brain sink into what she’s promising -- he was bad, but she’ll hurt him until he’s good again. She’ll beat him clean, let him atone for whatever fuck ups hang around his neck like a millstone keeping him grounded.

God, he wants so badly for that to be possible.

And now he’s naked, scarred and cold in the ship light, still tan from Jakku. Too fucking weak to say no to the promise of some kind of respite. Poe looks at her bed, big, with a nice non-standard blanket on top. He goes to it -- this was her way of giving him an out but he’s not running now.

Leaning over Holdo’s bed still makes him flush with how exposed he feels, naked and waiting and vulnerable. His stomach twists into a knot and he wonders what she’s planning, if it’s just the belt or something else. He pillows his head on his arms, the blanket soft under him. He closes his eyes and tries to even out his breathing.

“I see you _can_ be a good boy,” she says, and he bites his lip, tries not to startle.

“I don’t need that much positive reinforcement,” he says because it makes him squirm -- fundamentally, he isn’t, he’s not even trying to be one, probably won’t even be able to claim ‘good’ anything by the end of the war, besides pilot.

The crack across his ass is more sound than pain, a hand slap without much windup. He doesn’t make a noise and gets a second one, the other cheek. He thinks about telling her he doesn’t need a lot of warm-up, but his headspace is totally wrong -- maybe this time he does.

“Fine, then, I’ll just keep reminding you why you need to be punished -- about how you’re a _bad_ one.”

That actually makes everything feel better. Poe breathes slow in through his nose and tries to relax into it -- he doesn’t need a lot of warm-up because he can take a pretty heavy beating, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t ever want one. Pain tolerance is great for piloting but not so much for a quickie.

“You can’t follow orders,” she says, hitting him again, the slaps finding a rhythm.

“You can’t think past your own cockpit -- you think too much like a pilot, not enough like a _commander_.” She starts to hit in the same spot twice, thrice over and it makes him want to buck away, but he doesn’t.

Instead Poe squirms, pain blossoming as she keeps smacking him. That’s not true, he thinks, but nothing he could say now or on the bridge would change her mind, either. He’s not -- he isn’t just a dumb X-Wing jockey, and he knows that because his team trusts him (even when they shouldn’t) and most importantly, Leia’s told him so.

She moves on, still overlapping her earlier hits, and he wonders if his skin is warming up, going pink. It’s not even enough to call a throb, but it’s there. She’s got a decent arm but she isn’t hitting him at full strength, he can tell.

Still. He glances over his shoulder at her now, and her cheeks are ruddy, not quite in harmony with the softness of her pink hair. It’s glorious, really, and he licks his lips. His mouth is dry.

“I think you can take quite a bit more than this,” she says, straightening up and looking him up and down. Poe shifts his weight on his feet, can feel himself start to blush, the reality of his nudity harder to ignore when he’s not being beaten. She’s tall enough to _loom_ , and suddenly the eye contact is too much, he’s too exposed and too naked and too eager for this.

“What do you think?” she asks, demands. He feels rather than sees the sharp pricking of her nails against his ass; his eyes are shut and his face pressed against the bedspread again.

“Absolutely, sir,” he says, muffled. He almost adds, “do your worst,” but he doesn’t, because at least part of his brain is still working.

There’s a pause in the action, just him and his body and the bed underneath him. He jumps when Holdo taps him lightly on the inside of a thigh with the belt.

“Widen your stance, Captain,” she says, and he wants to get out of his head so badly he does it without a word. He’s thrumming with anticipation now, bare toes curling on the cool ship floor.

There’s a jangle of what must be his belt buckle, and then he hears the snap of leather behind him. She’s taking her time, and he wishes for one second that he was blindfolded, tied up, everything out of his control. Instead of asking, he shifts around, relaxing his shoulders and steadying himself.

The crack-slap of the belt is loud and it makes his whole body tense up a split second after impact, muscles going tight and rigid. It stings, but mostly because he’s already a little sore. Holdo’s testing it out.

The second one he feels properly, the hot crack of it against his skin. He wills himself to relax after the third hit. He wants to melt into this, and she’s not cracking him with so much force that he needs to scramble away. Instead it’s a heat building up, little pains adding up to an ache that he suddenly, intimately craves.

He can feel her slowly increase the intensity, each hit just a little harder, each economically timed to be just out of rhythm. By the time she’s up to fifteen he’s hot all over, can feel the sweat at his temples, can hear his own loud breathing in his ears, the noises he’s making. He’s suddenly aware of the ache in his hands from clutching at the sheets.

The eighteenth stripe lays into him hard and deep, and Poe pops up on his toes at the hit, body pushed forward on the bed by his startle reflex. The hit sizzles, a bright line over his ass, hot and good and painful. He jerks away and then pushes back, ready to get hit again.

And of course she does hit him again, right along the crease of glute and thigh, and the grunt he makes is louder than the rest. It hurts, sharp and still good.

There’s a pause, and he can hear Holdo breathing, can feel a lump in the blanket digging into his arm, can feel the rising heat on the sore flesh of his ass. He doesn’t look back because he can picture her perfectly, surveying his bare back and the dips of his spine -- his bubble butt is probably a rosy pink now, going red, a perfect target. He wonders if she has a flogger, how she travels with this shit, and ah, ah, ah, there it is.

Her nails run bright, delicious lines of pain over the heated skin. He groans in his throat, back bowing and hips pushing up and into it, just like he did with the belt. All the ambient arousal goes sharp all at once, dick chubbing up.

“You like that, do you?” she asks, and then she does it again, faster, sharper, and the groan escapes his mouth this time.

“Fuck, sir,” he says, because he hasn’t forgotten.

“This is supposed to be a punishment,” she says, but there’s enough humor in her voice that he knows she likes this, likes having him there for this. She wants him to want it.

“I want you to count now,” she says, accompanying another scrape. “I need to know you can follow orders.” She digs a nail into the meat of his thigh for each word.

“Uh, yeah, I can, sir,” he says, feeling fuzzy around the edges. It’s working now, he thinks, maybe.

“Try again.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” he says, gasping when she pinches the back of his thigh. That delicate manicure is sharp.

“We’ll see,” she says, imperious as always, while he’s trying not to grind into the bed. “I hope you can be a good boy.”

“One, sir,” he says, easy, even as he squeezes his eyes shut with the pain. His thighs flex with the effort of not wiggling, trying hard not to bring more punishment onto himself.

“Two, sir,” Poe pants, because stripe number two (and these are the ones that actually count, he reminds himself) isn’t a warning, it’s serious, a bright crack interrupting the lustful haze of the warm up.

His breath catches at “three, sir,” and by five he has to suck air hard through his nose before he has enough to say the number.

He clenches all over when she hits him again, involuntary, and she pats his hip, shushing him even as he counts for her.

“Relax, Captain. Just take it.”

Poe shudders after the eighth hit, a full body shake -- it’s another diagonal stripe, laying right on top of what might now be bright red skin. Instead of a number for the ninth hit he just whimpers, rocking forward on his toes, hands tightly wound in her blanket because otherwise he’d want to protect himself. She gives him a minute to catch his breath and say the number.

She doesn’t correct him when he drops the sir while counting, or when he whines or swears or shudders. He takes care to keep his feet in place but that’s about all he can give her, it’s enough effort to keep himself from scrambling away.

Poe groans with each hit, each one a bright light behind his eyelids. His groin is warm with the idea of arousal but he’s not totally hard either, pain settling in deep and hot in his muscles. The skin feels swollen, and he knows he’s got to have welts now.

“See? Isn’t it much nicer now that you’re all settled? Now that you’re behaving?”

She scratches over his reddened skin and he gasps, even though he expected it.

“Isn’t it nice to be a good boy?” she says sweetly, and smacks him again with the belt.

He yelps -- it’s a surprise, his defenses shattered after feeling warm and gooey at ‘good boy,’ even while feeling like an idiot. He feel achy and sore and exhausted, and it hurts when his muscles clench up with shock.

“Fifteen, sir.”

“Do you want to keep being good?”

He nods, face half shoved against the covers, even though he’s not sure what else she has in mind he’ll be happy to do it for her. He wants so badly to be good.

“Yes, sir,” he mumbles, maybe moans.

“I thought so,” she says, and then she traces the outer shell of his ear with one finely tipped nail. A shiver runs through his body, instinctive, and he definitely moans when she grabs his hair and tugs.

“I want you to thank me after each of these,” she says. “You needed to be punished and I obliged.”

“You’re doing me a favor, huh?” Poe’s words are slurred together, probably just as instinctive as the shivering was.

Her nails _hurt_ this time, from teasing to red shocks in his vision as she drags them across his welted skin; he yelps and he’s rolling his hips away from them and into the bed immediately.

“I’m taking time out of my day to discipline you, a mouthy little flyboy who doesn’t know when to quit,” she says, and he risks a glance over his shoulder. She’s even more in disarray now, hairs out of place, eyes narrowed, pink eyebrows furrowed. “You’ll thank me for that, and for not knocking you down to ensign.”

“Yes sir,” he says, whines in his throat because she’s scratching him again and it feels awful, like her nails are ripping his skin apart. It’s probably nothing more than a few raised lines over bruises but everything is so fresh, so tender - each touch is magnified tenfold and he wants it to stop.

“Count,” she says, stern, and he can hear her breathing now, big deep breaths, and --

The belt crashes into the crosshatching of welts on his ass and the wind is totally knocked out of his chest -- he makes some kind of nasal sound but he doesn’t know what, couldn’t recreate it. She’d cracked him diagonally, the belt licking his hip as it overlapped with every blow she’s struck thus far.

“Sixteen, sir, thank you sir,” he says, voice small and hoarse, and he knows she’s smiling now.

She hits him again, the opposite, a neat X over his butt, and that one makes him want to shout -- he doesn’t, though, manages to croak out another number and a thank you.

There’s another crack and he bounces forward on his toes again, body rigid with the effort of not scrambling up the bed and away, away, but the pain doesn’t come. Holdo laughs behind him and then suddenly whacks him with the belt right on the joint of ass and thigh, another hot and full-force hit that sparks right up his spine while hurting so badly.

“Eighteen, sir, thanks,” he says, miserable and hard and exhausted and his brain is a haze of endorphins, numbers, nothing but the immediate present of the pain in his ass, the soreness in his thighs, the way his shoulders tense up, the way his cock is probably dripping by now. He’s nothing but his body and his body is here now -- “Nineteen, thank you sir” -- a vessel to be pushed around.

He needs this.

Holdo doesn’t make him cry. She’s trying, he can tell, and it almost works -- there are tears in his eyes once he finally grits out the words, “Twenty-five, sir, thank you,” -- but he’s not quite free enough. Might never be, really, he thinks as he flexes his hands to ease the ache there. It’s stupid, considering the ache in his rear should really be taking up most of his concentration.

“Do you think that’s enough?” she asks him and he trembles, wants to crawl up the bed and bury himself into the soft blanket.

“No,” he says, mouth dry and lips cracking a little. His brain shies away from why that is, but he knows it’s true. “No sir.”

Poe deeply, desperately means it.

He can feel her denial in the way her nails ghost down his spine to rest at the swell of his ass, pricks of potential violence or tender ministrations.

“You’ve had enough,” she says and he whines. Poe’s world is two things -- the pain in his body and his need to being good.

“You can hit my legs,” Poe says, dumbly, because he’s already compromised his piloting as it is. “Shoulders,” he thinks he says.

“No,” she says, and she scratches at the jut of his hipbone, untouched by her hand or belt. It feels weirdly muted in comparison to everything else.

“Please,” he says, because she sounds unhappy and displeased and he knows she likes this, hitting him, hurting him, and she snorts but he hears the belt jangle behind him.

“You don’t need to count,” she says, and the hits are fast, furious even, and Poe counts silently because it’s smart to _know_ , part of the training you get to prepare you for capture, and it’s five hits in rapid succession, not enough time to even shout in between each one, let alone count. It’s all one big blur of noise and pain -- they’re probably not even full strength hits at this point but they feel like she’s putting the muscle of a Wookie behind them. Poe can only breathe out grunts, “uh, uh, uhs” falling from his mouth into nowhere.

She’s out of breath when she stops. Poe pants and doesn’t want to notice his face is wet, his breath hitching, the small sobs.

“Dameron, what do you say?” she asks. “Don’t you think you should be acting a little more gracious?”

The stupid thing is that Poe does feel grateful, pathetically grateful because now his brain is just a buzz of endorphins and aches and arousal and quiet, an ocean’s roar and nothing else.

“Thank you, sir,” he says, more of groan, and he grinds into her bed a little more. “Thank you for taking the time to discipline me, to make me better.”

Holdo grabs the back of his neck and he didn’t realize he was trembling until that moment, until she shushes him and rubs at tense muscles there, forcing them loose. That languid feeling slides down his shoulders, his spine, the sore ache under his tailbone, his thighs, so tight from anticipation.

She hums, content. “I think we understand each other now, don’t we?”

Poe nods dumbly under her grip.

“You can be a good boy when you really want to be. Look at how well you took that beating,” she coos at him, nails digging in again. “You’re capable of so much.”

Poe lets his eyes close and thinks only about her hands and how much pain can radiate up and inside of him, hurting him clean. Will the ache move up, sliding up his gut into his heart and mouth, strangling, punishing? He wants so badly for this to be choking him.

“Thank you sir,” he murmurs again, eyes closed.

“Good boy,” she says again and he hums, warm. “Do you really want to show me you’re grateful?”

He nods again, half buried into the top of the duvet. “Whatever you want.” Poe doesn’t mean it but in that moment, maybe he does.

Leia needs him -- he’s not such a glutton for punishment that he’s missed that -- but --

“Close your eyes and stay right there,” she says, and where else would he be at that moment, shipless and fleetless and rankless.

Poe hears her moving, feels the bed dip, doesn’t open his eyes because what if she decides he isn’t good after all.

“Open your eyes and come up here.”

Holdo is not what you would call regulation Republic Starfleet -- she's old school only on the bridge it seems, but this was a line Poe wasn’t sure they’d cross. But she’s up on the bed, leaning against the burnished silver wall of the ship, waiting. She lifts a sharp pink eyebrow as she shifts around the bed, pulling the folds of her dress up over her knees. Poe bites his lip and stares -- she’s either always naked under her gown or she’d anticipated this from the get go.

The thought that this was part of her plan the whole time, that beating him got her so hot she’d have to use him, too, makes him hazy with arousal despite his better judgement.

“I think you can follow this order without too much complaint, right Captain?”

Poe nods because he doesn’t know what he could possibly say -- “I don’t think you’re making great choices” seems beside the point when he’s already made eight bad ones that day, and besides, he wants to. He wants this badly, wants her to call him good boy again, wants to split her open and taste her like the koyo fruit back on Yavin IV.

He pulls the rest of himself onto the bed the best as best he can, doesn’t yowl when the skin feels too tight on his ass and thighs. He feels heavy on his knees, even on the bed, and it’s hard to move but he does, settling in front of her, her long legs splayed on each side of him. He chances running a hand from her surprisingly delicate ankle up to her thigh. She’s still has that aura of nobility despite the flush, and her hair is curling around her face, finally free from its elaborate presentation.

Poe kisses the inside of her knee and she snaps her fingers. “I don’t want you to tease me,” she says, sharp, and Poe really doesn’t want her to be mad -- he wants to be good, that’s what his sex-drunk brain is fixating on.

Her vulva is a dusty pink and glistening wet, a crown of tawny hair on her mons, and it’s almost instinctive to lean forward and taste, to run the flat of his tongue all the way up to her swollen clit. She tastes fresh, salty and good, and he dips his tongue inside before sliding the tip of it around her outer lips.

Her hand is already in his hair, of course, and she tugs, pulling him even closer.

“I think I’m entitled to a little stress relief of my own, wouldn’t you say?”

Poe licks his lips, leans into _doing_ instead of interpreting, taking the order and complying. It feels good, like he doesn't have a choice -- he feels hot all over but the arousal isn’t important now. He starts licking, a long stripe of his tongue up her cunt to her clit, as wide and flat as he can make it.

Her thighs go taut under his hands and he goes deeper -- he likes this, he’s good at this. Poe doesn’t really kiss and tell but he prides himself on being a generous lover to each and every person that deigns to take him to bed, and Holdo has already given him so much of her time. She’s right, he can give her this, even if there’s a part of him he wants to shake his head out from her firm grip on his scalp, wants to shy away from her and maybe nap, or hear her coo “good boy “ at him as he sleeps it off.

This isn't that.

The welts on his ass throb in time with the roar in his ears and he keeps going, tongue firm and steady and he can hear Holdo say something, feel her pulling at his hair, but his body is an ache now, a hindrance to his orders. Her thighs press against his ears and he focuses on the clit, faster and a little harder until she moans.

Poe’s not sure how long he licks at her, lapping against the folds of her vulva and sucking hard on her clit, face hot and sticky. Clearly beating him stupid got her in the mood, and she just gets wetter the longer he eats her out, her breathing heavier.

When he grazes his teeth against her fold she bucks hard, and she isn't letting him use his hands so he curls his tongue against her entrance, licks as far as he can before going back to her clit. His mouth is hard suction now, tongue hitting with rapid succession, the same tattoo of the belt, one, two, three. He tries to keep it up but can’t help but moan every so often -- he’s nothing but this for one sweet, long moment, and it’s good, he’s being good.

Holdo groans, deep and undignified, her hands cradling his head and pulling him deeper and deeper. His jaw aches and his scalp stings and her hips jerk against him, pubic bone crushing his nose. She holds him against her through the aftershocks of her orgasm

When’s she’s done she pushes him off and he closes his eyes and lets himself breathe, still on the ridiculously soft bed. Poe feels, blissfully, nothing but that deep ache that crowds out anything else, or fills up whatever was missing. He’s never been able to tell what’s getting satisfied when he hurts like this, lets someone hurt him like this. Asks for it. But it’s there, that satisfied buzzing under his skin and the heartbeat throb in the wake of the belt.

Holdo is fanning herself, a blur of delicate pink and milky thighs and blushing cheeks. “So you _can_ do more with that mouth than just cause trouble.”

Poe can feel the smile break on his own face as though it’s happening to someone else, and he lets his eyes close. “I’m a man of many talents,” he says from far away.

“I have to get back to the bridge,” she says, legs dangling off the bed, sitting up, “where you shouldn’t show your face for a while, as cute as it is.” Holdo pats his cheek, tender compared to what brought him here but there’s a sliver of edge to the order.

“Mmmph,” he says, not moving. “Sir.”

“You need to get to the hangar and rally the troops, Captain,” she says, and he finally opens an eye when he feels her stand up. She looks put together -- maybe rosier than before but her dress lays flat and of course she’s got no marks to show.

Poe pushes himself up with a grunt, still feeling bleary eyed and even feverish, weird in his own skin and also at home.

“You know what? You should take an hour, pull yourself back together. Everything classified in here’s locked away anyway.”

He nods, slowly, and she sends him something on his wrist communicator.

“I sent you a meeting reminder so you’ll get up and out of here.”

Holdo hesitates, and for a second he wonders if she’s going to get him off -- he feels ambivalent, the sharp arousal of doing ebbing back into a neutral, calming pain, melting into the welts on his thighs. At least he thinks they’re welts. He hasn’t even checked.

She finally says, “You’re a good boy, Dameron,” and this time the fingers in his hair are playful, soothing, and he leans into it for a little longer than he should.

“That doesn’t mean you’re right,” Holdo says with a sigh. “But you’ve got a good heart.”

The door swishes closed with a kind of finality, and Poe thinks, we’ll see about that.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Good Boy" by Sample Answer, which is definitely the theme song for Poe in this fic.
> 
> video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg57gTDz7w8  
> lyrics: https://genius.com/Sample-answer-good-boy-lyrics


End file.
